It is desirable for many parents to provide mittens to their children in order to protect their hands from the cold or from other adverse conditions. However, many mittens may be easily removed by children or may fall off during use, which is clearly undesirable. Moreover, the cuff portion of many mittens is insufficiently long and may lead to an unprotected area located between the child's jacket and the child's mittens.
While attempts have been made to address such issues with mittens, problems nevertheless remain with the known solutions brought about to date. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,363,534 discloses a mitten to which an elongated snow shielding sleeve is attached, the snow shielding sleeve having a length extending up to an elbow of a child. In addition, the child's overcoat sleeve can pass over the snow shielding sleeve of the mitten, such as to attempt to provide additional coverage and protection for the wrist of the child. However, such mittens have been found to insufficiently durable and too reliant on the consumer to use in a limited manner. The design of the snow shielding sleeve disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,363,534 has been found to be insufficiently stretchable and fails to remain in place on the child's forearm. With normal and repeated wear, the snow shielding sleeve described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,363,534 have been found to lose their shape and elasticity, which compromises their use and effectiveness.
Additionally, the snow shielding sleeves taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,363,534 are said to be made of an elastic rib knit fabric, which is generally stretchable only circumferentially, but not longitudinally. Accordingly, this snow shielding sleeve is able to circumferentially stretch to accommodate different sized wrists and forearms, but cannot stretch and expand longitudinally, which would provide improved coverage and further help keep both the sleeve and the mitten in position. Moreover, snow shielding sleeves of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,363,534 have been found to be disadvantageous for a number of reasons, including their inability to appropriately stay in position on the child's arm during us (i.e. it tends to fall down, thereby exposing the forearm and wrists), as well as their inability to withstand the normal wear and tear to which garments of this type are exposed during a winter season of continuous wear by children. For example, such snow shielding sleeves of the prior art have been found to be unable to sustain the normal, continued and/or repeated use of users wearing the mittens hundreds of times in a single season. As such, these snow shielding sleeves can only be worn when covered by a coat sleeve, which helps to keep them up and maintain them in place on the child's forearm, as they otherwise tend to stretch and fall down when exposed to the elements and to repeated on-off use. Such snow shielding sleeves would not be suitable for use without a long sleeved overcoat at least partially protecting them during use, and thus would not, for example, be suitable for use with a sleeveless vest.
Therefore, an improved mitten is sought.